Star Trek: Vanguard #1: Harbinger [Mass Market Paperback]

The worst thing about Star Trek Vanguard is that we have to wait until July 2006 for the next in the series. In "Harbinger," David Mack has taken an approach that had yet to be explored in the Star Trek mythos. Usually, a television show or book will focus on the captain, first officer, security officer, etc... But Mack has brought in a very wide array of characters, from Tim Pennington, a reporter for the Federation News Service, to Ganz, an Orion merchant-prince. This presents Vanguard to the reader on a much grander scale than any previous Trek incarnation. The writing is witty and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny, and familiar characters such as Captain Kirk and Mister Spock are written dead on. Hopefully, fans will be presented with something similar whenever the next television show rolls around. Vanguard is a book that has no problems appealing to all Trek fans.

Penned by best-selling author David Mack, HARBINGER is an outstanding novel in its own right and the perfect introduction to a series with lots of promise. The story has all the necessary elements to hook you and hold you; a great concept and fascinating characters you want to know more about, whether or not you personally find them likable.

As you read you begin to realize that there are a multiple mysteries being set up within the narrative, the most obvious being what's so special about the Taurus Reach. By the end of the first chapter you are already intrigued by the ambiguities surrounding the station and as the story continues to build, the more you read the more you want to know.

Vanguard has a large cast of characters, both principal and supporting, most of whom are all trying to get to the bottom of what's going on, each for a different reason. Mack takes his time introducing the main characters, continuously building up an ever evolving picture of them as individuals. The mix of characters provides a nice balance. They aren't all Starfleet and they most definitely aren't what you'd expect. This approach to `casting' the series provides the reader with multiple points of view as events unfold. The various characters feel real in their responses and reactions to the events they find themselves caught up in. Some of the characters you'll like, some you'll loathe but they are individually and collectively a fascinating bunch.

The time frame for Vanguard is firmly anchored by the use of a major point in Star Trek history, the Enterprise's disastrous mission to the barrier. While Mack does sprinkle in various homage's to the TOS era, and address some discrepancies seen on screen between "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and "The Corbomite Maneuver", he never allows the Enterprise crew to take over the story, they are very much supporting characters in this first novel.

HARBINGER has it all; adventure, suspense, nail-biting action, character's you very quickly come to care about and the occasional twist to keep you on your toes. Based on what has been set up in HARBINGER for future authors to expand on, I have no doubt that the Vanguard series is going to be a sensational addition to the Star Trek universe.

Pocket Books has launched a new series of Star Trek books, set during the early period of Kirk's time. The series is Star Trek: Vanguard, and the first book, Harbinger is an excellent start. Written by David Mack, one of the premier authors of the line, it carries an interesting concept, some rather unique (at least for Star Trek) characters, and some wonderful plotting. It definitely leaves me waiting impatiently for the next book.

Starbase 47, also known as Vanguard, is a station way out beyond Federation space, in a zone sandwiched between the Klingon Empire and Tholian space. Built very quickly, it also has a secret purpose, one which only a few members of Starfleet's hierarchy know. Captain Kirk is bringing the Enterprise back from the edge of the galaxy, after the events of the television episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before." The ship is battered, his friend is dead at his own hand, and Kirk just wants to get home and refit. He discovers that the Vanguard station is along their way home, and is much closer than limping back to Federation space, so he takes the Enterprise there. When he gets there, his suspicions are aroused by the reluctance of Commodore Reyes to answer his questions about why the station is out there, and he becomes determined to get to the bottom of what's going on.

Let me start right away by saying that, while a lot of the description of the above was about Kirk, this is *not* his book. Kirk and the Enterprise are only in this book to do a "hand-off" to the crew and characters of Vanguard, much like the appearance of Picard in Deep Space Nine's pilot. This is the raw rookie Kirk, not yet the legend, and people don't kowtow to him (though he isn't above bullying his way in anyway). Reyes shoots him down quite quickly when Kirk begins demanding answers. I quite liked Reyes' character, as he has quite a few flaws, but he is loyal to his crew and to Starfleet, as well as harboring a secret or two of his own. I loved the scenes between Kirk and him, where Mack illustrates the differences between the two commanders.

Mack handles the other characters brilliantly too, introducing them all in scenes that don't sink to "info-dump" level, instead having their initial scenes flow from the characters themselves. Pennington, the Federation News Service reporter, is having an affair with one of the officers on the Bombay (a ship assigned to Vanguard), whose husband happens to be a crewmember on the Enterprise. He's a reporter with a keen eye for a story, and a willingness to dig very deep if necessary. Throughout the book, Pennington's life goes from a great high at the beginning of the book to a deep low as events happen. By the time the inevitable happens and he begins to think his life can't get any worse, the reader has grown to care about him a great deal. He is probably one of the best new characters in the book, but he is not the only one.

This crew is not your typical Star Trek crew. This is a time where the utopia of the Next Generation series hasn't happened yet, and the Federation is still in danger of falling to an outside threat if they're not careful. The characters are not perfect, and some have really deep flaws. Not only that, but Mack doesn't present us with the normal "captain, first officer, chief engineer, etc" crew. Reyes is the commander, we briefly see the first officer, but he's not a main character. Instead, we have a reporter, a merchant/smuggler (for those of you familiar with the old Trek series, think Cyrano Jones), an Orion crime lord, a Federation diplomat and his assistant (the assistant also being a Klingon spy) and a Starfleet Intelligence agent, among others. This eclectic mix just adds to the story possibilities.

As for the plot, Starfleet has discovered something mysterious and potentially valuable in the Taurus Reach (the area of space where Vanguard is), and it must be kept secret from the Klingons and Tholians. They desperately want to know what it is. This storyline will continue through the series, so we're not given too much information about this find, other than it appears to be a massive amount of raw data. The way Mack has written this first book, the ideas for where this story can go are endless, and they don't all have to revolve around this overarching plot. That's the sign of a good series, and I hope it continues.

In typical Mack fashion, Harbinger has quite a lot of death and destruction, but uncharacteristically, this only takes place in one scene. The rest of the book is quite character-based, introducing all of them and showing us how they are related. Mack writes these scenes almost flawlessly, with each one building strongly on the ones before it. He switches effortlessly between the numerous character threads, having them interact occasionally, and parceling out their secrets like he's awarding treats to the reader. It's quite effective in making you keep going, and I finished this book much more quickly than I usually do, as I couldn't put it down.

Harbinger makes a wonderful beginning to the Vanguard saga, and as Kirk and company head off back to Earth, I'm quite confident that the crew and residents of Starbase 47 can stand on their own numerous feet. David Mack's given them a good start, and the stars are the limit for where they can go. This is one of the best Trek books of the year.

David Roy

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